The ramblings of a pilgrim through time, space, and life.

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Far Flung

I thought another entry would be in order. A few notes of interest first.

Tonight I again played Dr. Abbott in Squash. Do you know how humbling it is to be whooped by a 60 year old man in Squash every week? He is an orthodontic professor at the Dental School Amanda attends. Anyhow, it is not all bleak. I beat him 2 of 6 tonight, and 2 of 6 last week. One of the games tonight was a complete shutout. He did not make a single point! Yeah, I am getting my game back. It just doesn’t seem very impressive against a 60 year old!

For the family history plug, I have two miniature miracles to give. Family history is one of those things that just keeps on giving.

I received an e-mail from a Juan Jose Breuer Moreno in Buenos Aires suburbia. Instantly the Breuer name in his name had my interest piqued. Well, he was sending me an e-mail about family history. Come to find out, we are exactly 6th cousins.

Going back far enough, I had a set of great something grandparents whose last name was Breuer. We are talking they were married in Kirchheim, Prussia on the 22 Jul 1777. Their daughter, Anna Catharina Breuer would marry a Wilhelm Jonas. A name that would come down through the years to be my mother’s maiden name.

Anna Catharina Breuer had a half brother named Carl. That is Juan’s ancestor. So I have officially opened communications with a relative who lives in Argentina. Who would have ever thought I had ties to Argentina by blood? I look forward to learning more about the family. I do recognize that he lives in an area called San Isidro, which is a very affluent area. It is also an area with heavy ties to the government there. It will be interesting to learn of their history and if perchance it ties to the history of Argentina.

He tells me he has a full time genealogist working for him. I wish I could afford someone to help out in the old East Germany! Luckily this line comes from Rheinland which does make it somewhat easier, besides the language barrier. At any rate, just what I have seen so far, this genealogist is very thorough and appears to have ALL the information one could want in relation to dates and places for important events. I am especially interesting in learning what he has for the ancestors of the Breuer line, for what I have only goes one more generation (to1720). Hopefully he has opened up a whole load more.

For another little miracle. I received an e-mail from a lady who was inquiring about Sarah Amelia Donaldson from Ontario Province, Canada. I always knew my Donaldson’s came to Utah via Ontario Province and Ireland. So I looked into my records to find I did have a Sarah Amelia Donaldson.

I responded to her e-mail but alas, it was not the same one. It is not uncommon to get e-mails that end up not taking you anywhere.

Oddly, a few days later, she e-mailed me back and said she had the strangest story (I don’t know the details, so I am assuming quite a bit here). That she had told her mother that I have a different Sarah Amelia Donaldson. Her mother made the comment that she had some records on that Sarah.

Her mother went and dug out a packet of papers. At some point in the past, a lady knocked on the door with this packet. She knew that her mother was related to the Donaldson family and left the packet with her. For what reason, I am not sure. She didn’t know what to do with it, it was any relative of hers so she stuck it away.

Here I come with a different Sarah Amelia, and this lady offers to scan all the pages and e-mail them to me. I can tell you that I have received over 100 e-mails of scanned documents on my Donaldson family. Granted one brother many years ago moved to Northern Utah and started my line. But as far as I can tell, all the rest remained in Frontenac Township of Ontario Province. She sent me scores of documents providing children, families, and information on families I had not traced too much. (It is a line I have wanted to pursue, but have not). She gave me information that traced this line of the Donaldson family across Canada to British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. These are lines that would have been difficult to establish noticing how much they moved about. One line even goes to the Seattle area.

Well, I have made it through about half of the e-mails. I have to admit, I am a bit tired of opening e-mails and inserting the information, but what a treasure of information. Some of the family group sheets are very complete with all the dates. Others just have names, and I will have to hunt down more on them at some other time.

But I am grateful to have added a good score of family to the file. There is plenty more to go. I am sure of that. Just information I need to round out what she gave me would keep me occupied for a good while.